Overhead

“ Why not relegate the word mother to the limbo of the “archaic,” as a term too old-fashioned and too elastic to be tolerated in this precise and refined age?
“In climbing one ascends.” Very well. It is true that one way of ascending is by climbing; and there are as many ways of descending, plus one, as there are of ascending. If one has reached an altitude by climbing and if he declines to tumble and if he wishes to descend by reversing his method of ascending, why should he not be permitted to climb down—and to say so if it please him? ”

“ Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is no resting-place upon them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number. Doth not wealth satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer serve to satisfy or pleasure, or to buy an hour’s peace of mind? And is there any end to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? ”

“ As in the ascent of the elevation, step by step, we can judge imperfectly of its height, until from the very summit we look down upon our place of starting, so with the wretched outcasts of society of whom we speak. ”

“ Must we, for their neglect, bear all the blame?
Nay, Master, we have come to love our land!
But see, the task Thou givest us is great;
The load is heavy and the way is long!
Hold Thou our enemy without the gate;
When we have rested then shall we be strong. ”

“ Scarce a hand's breadth above the ground you've grown."
"Dear friend, that I'm of humble height, 'tis true,
But without help I grow. I pity you,
That cannot rise, even a hand's breadth high,
Without a wall to climb by, if you try." ”

“ Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging, day and night, in the vast iron-works of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag. ”

“ VIII—THE BLOOD OF KINGS There never was, and there isn’t now, anything elusive about the Hill Division, unless you get to talking about the mileage—when you strike the mileage you strike deep water, and the way of it is this. Most things that are big and vital and enduring develop with the years to their own maturity, and with maturity comes perfection—as nearly as anything is perfect. ”

“ Let us go out together and preach the Master in the Highways and Hedges. Your example shall be as a shining light to guide the feet of those who are snared by riches. Come! The world has called you on one side and the Master on the other, and you have hesitated ”

“ Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the top round of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header into chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, and begin to climb again. ”

“ Where are the tall men that marched on the right,
That marched to the battle so handsome and tall?
They've been left to mark the places where they saw the foemen's faces,
For the fever and the lead took them all, Jenny Orde,
The fever and the lead took them all. ”

“ The gong, and then Half Ahead!—great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of limitless strength. Full Ahead!—and so off again for the great struggle—man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God against the upreaching of the sea. ”

“ If one will forsake his idols, he can, with ease and pleasure, mount to the shining summit which is but the edge of the King’s glorious Highway. Come, Mr. World, hesitate no more. Let procrastination end, and go with me even to the hill, and I will help you to the summit—while Another will help you more. ”

“ Firmness and determination were still written there, but certain lines had been added; lines of patience that said louder than words: “I have learned one great lesson; that one may run uphill, but that mountains must be climbed slowly, patiently, circle by circle, till the summit is reached.” ”

“ And if now we merely set our faces in the right direction, it is then but a matter of time until we come into the full splendors of this complete realization. To set one's face in the direction of the mountain and then simply to journey on, whether rapidly or more slowly, will bring him to it. But unless one set his face in the right direction and make the start, he will not reach it. ”

“ Others will follow in its wake, and they will shake and undermine the ground on which you stand, until it trembles and yawns beneath your feet, and you will sink to depths great as the height to which you have risen. ”

“ One had but to look at the stern, set faces of our followers, and the gleam of exultation and expectancy which shone from their eyes, to see that they were not the men to quail, either from superior numbers or equipment. ”

“ In twenty minutes we breast the hill, a trifle stiffer for the rest, and, it may be fancy, our left boot-sole has developed an inequality not previously sensitive. We swing along, however, in all the pride of 'second wind,' and fix our thoughts upon the next stage, eight miles farther on. ”

“ Movement was the keynote of the picture—stealthy, not-yet-quite-confident pack-movement on the one hand, concentrated here and there in blood-red eddies, and, on the other hand, swift, desperate marches in the open. ”

“ Oppressed by the sight of so much wretchedness, I turned from its contemplation, and called aloud to the gentlemen without (who had all this time been waiting to hear from us) to come up the ladder to the top of the pile of boughs. The overseer was quickly at the top of the opening, by which I had descended; and I now informed him that we had found the lady. ”

“ More than once we were tempted to trust ourselves to one of those rushing torrents, but what reason we had left told us that our little remaining strength was unequal to the task of keeping our heads above the surface. ”

“ I wouldn’t lift my finger for a distant perfection in which I myself, and all those I loved, only counted as fuel. But, on the other hand, I do believe that each one of us is going to grow into an Overman—in a quite different sense. ”

“ Let him rough it, barefoot and bareheaded; let him climb hills and take short cuts over fences and ravines; every fall, every skinned elbow and bumped head, will impart a lesson in the art of locomotion. Without apprentice-fees of that sort he will never get to be a master. ”

“ I know I was rammed down your throat, but just when are you going to let me do some work?”
“None of us has much of anything to do yet, and won't have until we light somewhere. You're off base a country mile.” ”

“ While climbing, at first with slow and toilsome but reliant steps, and, later on, with swifter, surer progress, that summit to which his genius urged him, he was often and again confronted by the clamor of discontent, the jealousies of his profession, and the various forms of opposition his rapid, upward course evoked ”

“ The leader was so full of spring that he fairly bounded over the ground, and if we came to a little elevation, or arched bridge, he sprang into the air like a catamount, while his fellow behind, though a little more stiff, as a "wheel horse" ought to be, bore himself proudly, tossing up his head, and throwing out his chest, and never lagged for an instant. ”

“ The gates lower down, which bar the progress of lesser men, will obligingly open to let him slip through, and it is well if he misses the altogether miserable muddy pool on the edge of which all endeavours begin and in the cold depths of which every failure ends. ”

“ What a plan of the universe!—all intelligence magnetically drawn to the Centre, like the ships to the Mountain of the Loadstone in the Arabian Nights—as they approach, the nails which hold them together are withdrawn, they fall apart, and all the fabric is dissolved. ”

“ I do not know if I am helping the overseers to drag the men apart, or if I am trying to increase the confusion; but I shout, I rave, I seize two by their necks and hurl them to the ground as if they were puppets ”

“ But when an abrupt turn shows there is a steep to climb, the pathway itself becomes confused, indefinite, treacherous, and the guiding voices have scattered, some going one way and some another, what must one do? ”

“ Let us think of some of the rules by which we must walk in the narrow way. We must walk humbly. It is a narrow way remember, and if we walk with our heads lifted up by pride, we shall miss our footing, and slip from the path. The gate, too, is strait, or narrow. ”

“ Meanwhile that great troop of men, tired, weary, afraid, and anxious, say: 'Verily, Master, guide, and leader, know that we are tired, weary, afraid, and anxious; let us return; this dense forest stretches so far.' The guide, who is a man of able devices, on seeing those people desirous of returning, thinks within himself: It ought not to be that these poor creatures should not reach that great Isle of Jewels. ”

“ A sudden rise in the road shows us the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. ”

“ To undermine the ground for fifty feet — to devote three years to a labor which, if successful, would conduct you to a precipice overhanging the sea — to plunge into the waves from the height of fifty, sixty, perhaps a hundred feet, at the risk of being dashed to pieces against the rocks, should you have been fortunate enough to have escaped the fire of the sentinels ”

“ These mechanical giants puffed and panted with an almost human expression, in their vigorous struggle to drag the train forward,—now and again hovering upon the very verge of inability, and then, as it seemed to us, by putting forth renewed energy and extraordinary effort, pressing forward and finally surmounting the steep way. ”

“ One sees before him a mountain of toil, an apparently endless drudgery from which there is no escape. Having once begun it, an interest appears unexpectedly; new forces ally themselves with the fumbling hands. ”

“ Stand on the hill one day, return to it one, five or ten years afterward, standing in the same place. It is quite possible that nothing has changed in the scene about you. A certain time has passed, but you, to yourself, haven’t changed. ”

“ I've done wrong and I've done right, and I'm doing as all the rest of the great mass, in a state of flux, is doing; growing up from the mud into something better. If not in this life or the next, well then, since the mills grind with exceeding patience, in some other life. ”

“ Often while loading my horse the thought struck me whether the poor brute ever had a wish to protest, 'Surely this is becoming too bad!' and that reminds me that one must be very careful not to overload. ”

“ Those who worked, worked; those off duty, not five feet behind them in the dug-outs, were deep in their papers, or their meals or their letters; while death stood ready at every minute to drop down into the narrow cut from out of the narrow strip of unconcerned sky. ”

“ The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always some levelling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others. ”

“ He belongs to the heights—he breathes there, he lives there, and it's accordingly to the heights I must ascend," I said as I took leave of my conductress, "to carry him this wretched news from where we move!" ”

“ As soon as you see the sortie begun get your men ready for action, and let them lie down without showing themselves more than they can help at the edge of the brow from which they can fire down into the valley. ”

“ Did I not say we need elevation? as men, Americans, and Christians, we need elevation: in our persons and families, states and churches, we need elevation. Certainly I did thus speak, and meant all I said. ”

“ But even on this supposition the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the Overworlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. ”

“ Had the great Overseer of men's destinies not seen fit to guide him to the Frontier, out of reach of demoralising influences, it is doubtful whether he would have escaped the trail of the petticoat, the snare of the grass-widow in determined search of amusement. ”

“ I know that sometimes the hill is terribly hard to climb, and bitterly long, but somewhere there is always a top. Don't think of the load, the whip, or the hill, but keep thinking, always, of what it's like on top. ”

“ But one who commenced the day full of vigor, and in manhood's prime, and who little suspected that danger lurked in his path, was destined to be snatched from among us, in an instant, and taken to "that bourne from whence no traveler returns." ”